It was back up the motorway again today to collect my unselected work from the Waterside Arts Centre. While I was there I took time to visit the last day of an exhibition of paintings by Walter Kershaw, one of the selectors on the panel of the Waterside Open.
I really enjoyed this exhibition, which was my first visit to the spacious and well lit Lauriston Gallery. Walter Kershaw created the largest industrial mural in Europe for Trafford, and there are studies and photographs recording this on display here, as well as many large and small scale landscapes plus several paintings from his extensive travels. I was intrigued by one painting of a group of young women signed by a female name which appeared to be an anagram of Walter Kershaw. I could have asked the artist himself, as he stood nearby chatting with a small group of people. This added to the pleasant, laid back atmosphere in the gallery, which was very busy with interested folk of all ages.
My particular favourites were a tall painting of high rise apartments which was full of colour and skewed perspective, and a painting on hardboard of cooling towers, which had some really interesting shapes, almost abstract whilst being firmly rooted in the figurative. There were also some lovely snowscapes, which reminded me of how gorgeous everything looked this time last week when G and I drove up through the winter wonderland to deliver my drawings.
Nearly all of the snow was gone today. Just a few greying lumps lingered here and there, the remains of melted snowmen I assumed.
The canal outside the Waterside Art Centre was still frozen, but this time rather than being pristine and pure, the ice had just the opposite effect emphasising the grimmier aspects of everyday living; cigarette butts and drinks cans sat on the greyish crust, along with an array of yellow golf balls!
Last night I made another drawing of my Christmas Poinsettia. I'm quite pleased with this one, which inspired me to buy some more pens from Hobbycraft at Bridgmere, where G kindly took me on the way home. I'm suddenly filled with inspiration and new ideas for the spring. Won't jinx it though by typing it out loud as I seem to have done with so many ideas before, or like golf balls on the ice they might just sink slowly into oblivion!
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